Page 50 of The Duke and the Disciple

Chapter12

The Stag and the Bowman

Avisit to the observatory was out of the question, but when Asa Castel mentioned the old atelier at the top of the eastern tower of Castellan, even Drazhan couldn’t agree fast enough. That was how Rahn knew how truly scared the man was for Aesylt. Even in a crisis, he would ensure her needs were met.

Rahn and Aesylt had marched up the hundred and twenty steps with an entire retinue of guards, who went no further than the door. The studio was small, but the walls and ceiling were all windows. Unfortunately, the night was ill-suited for star-watching, but he sensed it wouldn’t matter soon. A new plan was imminent.

“Scholar, you’ve been staring at the same spot for a half tick of the moon. Do you believe you can will those clouds to clear?”

Rahn grinned to himself, his head shaking as he angled it slightly toward Aesylt. “All clouds eventually clear, do they not?”

Aesylt screwed her upper lip into a frown that made her seem young and impertinent. “Is that supposed to be a pithy metaphor?”

“If so, it was clearly wasted on you, wasn’t it?” His smile slowly faded as he returned his gaze to the hazy, cloudy sky. “This isn’t the night for this.” He waited for some fresh jibe from her, but she simply stared through the thick-paned glass with a thoughtful expression. “Nothing clever to say to that?”

Her brows fused as she stared harder. “Whatever happens next, we won’t get more nights like this, will we?”

Rahn nodded at the cloudy night sky. “I don’t get that impression, no.”

“What happens if we don’t have more notes to submit to the Reliquary soon?”

He sucked his teeth. “Well... We’re beholden to how quickly other matters resolve themselves, but... nothing good.”

“So if we cannot produce more observations on astronomy, our only option then would be for me to continue my work with Nik?”

Rahn prickled, heat rising within him, hard and fast. “No, Aesylt, that’s not what I?—”

“Relax.” She choked out a dry laugh. “I’m only trying to understand the situation for what it is. Fair to say we need to make the most of our time tonight?”

“More fair to say,” Rahn replied testily, “that it isn’t up to us.”

“What if it was?”

“It’s not.”

Aesylt tapped the sides of her chair, staring at the fire. “The celestial realm is a mirror of our world. There are no terrestrial variances. The land is our land. The sky is our sky. The only notable difference is no one else is there, unless I bring them with me.” She stretched an arm in front of her, pointing it upward. “What I did not tell you, Scholar, is I can influence that world, in some ways. Limited ways. If we were to go there, we’d see the same clouds, but I believe I could clear them. I think the world adapts to what I need from it, while the fundamentals stay the same.”

Rahn turned in his chair. He couldn’t deny his curiosity, but his rational mind was all too aware of the dangers involved in blind exploration. Even Aesylt knew little about the world she’d been visiting her entire life. A place without rules was a place anything could happen. Even something as innocuous as watching the sky could be hazardous.

He briefly weighed the risks and fears against the alternative. One good night of charting could keep them both busy with documentation for days, no matter where Drazhan sent them. Aesylt would stay occupied with something useful, and it would keep her from feeling obligated to compromise herself with Niklaus.

And if Rahn was there with her in the celestial realm, he would know if something went amiss. He would have, at the very least, an opportunity to help her.

“Scholar?”

“If we do this...” Rahn tented his hands under his chin, thinking. “What will happen if the guards come in looking for us?”

“They agreed not to bother us,” she said.

“It doesn’t mean they won’t.”

“If they come in, then they’ll find an abandoned post, but if we transition, say, behind that wall over there... then we can just say they didn’t see us. They certainly wouldn’t see us come back if we were hidden.”

“The plan seems thin, Aesylt.”

“Then we...” Aesylt breathed deep, tilting her head toward the sky again. Her pale hair fell behind her like a silken wave, and he had to look away again. “We come back, once an hour. If we’re gone only an hour at a time, and they come in between those times, we can simply say we climbed outside for a better look. We’d have plausible deniability.”

“Plausible deniability? Are you a lawman?” Rahn chuckled, to cover the fact that he’d already decided the moment she’d proposed it. His protectiveness of her had been no more than a confine she was determined to squeeze through, but embracing her way of thinking was the one thing he hadn’t tried. “If we do this...”

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